Paco Pena - 23/6/10

This was not a Paco Pena recital although he was fronting the publicity. It was a Flamenco event with the usual mix of dancing, singing and playing but also had a themed storyline which was I think contrasting the 'pure' Spanish Flamenco with the South American music that was a fusion of indigenous music and spanish music. The dancing was great particularly the male lead dancer. The singing was excellent both the flamenco voice and the South American singer who had an effortless richness and there was a frisson every time he started singing. The south american band featured four stringed bandolas and cuatros and a 10-stringed instrument and the musicians were very good. Paco Pena played a piece at the beginning on a loosely strung guitar that was rich and superb. He played a longer piece together with one of the South American musicians in the second half. These along with the South American singer's songs were the main musical highlights but as I said the evening was about more than the music

Elvis Costello - 21/6/10

I have been to see Elvis Costello a few times starting on the end of a pier at Hastings about thirty years ago. He always delivers.

This was a solo gig which is different to his gigs next week which are with a band. This was a fairly intimate gig despite being in the Symphony Hall because he made it so. He mainly played on a couple of beat up acoustic guitars and the songs came thick and fast. It was a fairly broad sweep through his catalogue with only a couple of songs that I recognised from his latest album.

One of those came early on after a couple of songs from the 90s ('45' and 'Either Side of the Same Town') and it was the opener on the album 'Down Amongst the Wines and Spirits'. This is a classic sad country song and it worked beautifully as a solo acoustic number.

The guitar playing was precise and professional and the singing soulful and emotional all through the gig.

Highlights for me included 'Shipbuilding' which is very powerful and the acoustic rendition accentuated the pathos. Others that resonated were 'Every Day I Write the Book' which was much better live than on the record, 'A Good Year for the Roses' which was a song I didn't know but had that country sadness done to a 'T', and 'Alison' one of his early classics. He also did a song in truly acoustic fashion, front of stage, unplugged, no mike and he claimed this was rock and roll 1921-style. It was called 'Slow Drag from Josephine' and was pretty mesmerising. I also really enjoyed the guitar on that old favourite 'Watching the Detectives' where he confounded the expectations by playing a looped disonant guitar solo.

He played for an hour and a quarter and went off and came back for an encore. I think it was the longest encore I have ever seen as he played for a further fifty minutes and he kept saying 'just one more' but the enthusiasm of the audience seemed to stop him actually leaving the stage. He started by responding after just a beat to a request from the audience 'Three Sons' and then played loads of good stuff - 'Man Out of Time' and 'King of Confidence' were particularly good and 'Sulfur to Sugarcane' was outstanding.

I think we were privileged to hear Elvis on such good form and solo. Excellent gig.

Mark Knopfler 1/6/10

It's been a few years since I saw Mark Knopfler - I think the last time I had tickets he hurt himself in a motorbike crash and so the gig was cancelled. This time round he had a trapped nerve but the show was on albeit he was restricted to sitting in a special chair.


The support was Kate Walsh who sang and played guitar and had a sidekick who played cello. It was good but detailed memories of it were blown away by the main act.

Mark Knopfler's band reflected his recent bias towards Scottish/Northumbrian folk with an excellent fiddle player and Mike McGoldrick on flute, whistle and uillean pipes as well as the usual suspects such as Guy Fletcher and Richard Bennett.

He kicked off with 'Border Riever' from 'Get Lucky' and then played the firs two tracks on 'Sailing to Philadelphia'; 'What it is' and the title track. All these tracks featured prominent violin and other folk instruments with Mark studiously playing with them.

He then dipped into 'Ragpicker's Dream' for the foot-tappingly addictive 'Coyote' and then back to 'Sailing...' for one of the stand out tracks for me 'Prairie Wedding'.

As the gig progressed he played a number of older Dire Straits favourites such as 'Romeo and Juliet', 'Sultans of Swing' of course, and at the encore 'Brothers in Arms' which while derided by many is simply a spine-tingling piece of guitar.

Of all the guitar players I like live Mark Knopfler has a habit of playing chords that reverbrate in my mind and he did it again at the gig. It was a chord to end a track and it was just perfection.

In fact his guitar playing throughout was stupendous. Not quite as soaring as maybe in the early eighties but accomplished, confident and expressive. The gig flew by - always a sign of a great gig - but after a couple of hours it was all over and we walked back in the drizzle to the tube.